


Dear Doppelganger

by Blueinkedfrost



Series: Candle Universe [3]
Category: Baldur's Gate, Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Adventure, Advice Columns, Bad Advice, Comedy, Fantasy, Gen, Humour, Relationship Advice, Silly Romance Novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2020-12-21 08:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21071846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueinkedfrost/pseuds/Blueinkedfrost
Summary: A hopeless Bhaalspawn runs a mysterious advertisement in the broadsheets, seeking out the desperate and downtrodden so that he may use his skills against their tormentors. But when he lets a doppelganger loose to answer some of his letters, chaos results. Giving advice isn't easy!





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is dedicated to CMY187, who suggested a comedy of doppelgangers. This is a silly side story in the Candle universe.

Krilpur - doppelganger, shapeshifter, monster out of human nightmares - tried again to understand the Bhaalspawn's filing system, and again failed dismally. He'd been told by wiser people than he it was not his fault. Kovacs could unerringly lay his hand to any paper or gimmor or stage-magic device he wished in a moment, and one couldn't say his quarters were unclean, but the widespread leaves of parchment and other small objects formed unfathomable fractals of chaos.

"Is there anything I can help you with, sir?" he asked.

"Not at present. If you've come from my father, I've heard his message." Kovacs twisted the tiger's eye earring in his left ear. Immediately, his shape seemed to blur and fade, causing eyes to pass across it unless they knew he was there. It was a useful little charm - and an expensive one.

"Perhaps I could dispose of materials you no longer need?" Krilpur asked. Behind them, the cistern gurgled. It was usual for Kovacs to end up with the smallest room that no one else wished to take whenever they had lodgings. He was the bastard child of a god, treated like a slave. In public a dutiful adopted son to the wealthy merchant Albescu Demirci, in private only a tool for the purposes of power.

A sheaf of papers almost immediately flew to Kovacs' hands, folded like a fan. He passed them to Krilpur. "These can go into the fire. If I don't return from the temple tonight, turn into Michel the doorman and make inquiries."

Kovacs' father Albescu Demirci sought an artefact of power in Trademeet, this bustling Amnian town before them. After many days of gathering floor plans and researching schedules and weaknesses, Kovacs was trying a burglary tonight. Surely the temple's vault was the only place secure enough to hold such a prize.

"I will take care of them," Krilpur said. "Do you mind if I read them first? I always try to learn more of human culture."

"Knock yourself out." Then the blur was gone in a whirl and a flash, leaving Krilpur with the waste-paper.

He knew what these letters were. Kovacs privately advertised in one of the town broadsheets, under the name The Last Resort. He searched for the desperate, for those who might need a Bhaalspawn's hard won skills of murder. He sought out people who abused their power against the powerless and took them down in blood. He had met Krilpur and his tribe by slaying their old, terrible master. He lived with the gift to free other people but never himself.

These were the human letters Kovacs couldn't or wouldn't help. Krilpur took them to study.

_Dear Last Resort._

_My wife and I agreed on an amiable separation. Or so we thought we did! She has her own household; I have mine; we have decided to be happy apart. Very happy indeed._

_The only trouble is that she wants the dog and I want the dog. When we lived together, I walked him and she fed him. Now, we keep stealing him away from each other and quarrelling over him. We are truly desperate. Do you have any ideas?_

_Sincerely,  
_ _Desperate Canine Fancier._

Krilpur smiled to himself. How foolish some humans were! It was obvious what they ought to do.

And it was then that the brilliant idea hit him. Since Kovacs was too busy, he would answer the letter himself. Why not? Kovacs would be happy, the humans would be happy, and he would get more practice on writing in a human way.

Kriplur would be just like his idol, Madame Endolynne Markett, writer of countless romance novels about dukes and dairy-maids, which had greatly benefited Krilpur's knowledge of human culture.

He chewed the end of his pen, waiting for inspiration. What was the best way to help the human? What would the human want to hear? Of course, the human would first want to feel understood and supported, and then would want the solution to their problem.

_Dear Fancier,_

_I fully understand you. I love dogs myself, just like many other humans do._

The perfect beginning.

_You two should split the dog in half. Use a set of balance scales to evenly distribute the weight. If one of you particularly wants the head, the other should have a greater share of intestines, otherwise you should split it evenly. Dog flesh is succulent and tender - I am sure you both have a wonderful meal waiting for you!_

_Kind regards,  
_ _Last Resort._

Krilpur grinned to himself and marked the parchment carefully with the address the Desperate Canine Fancier indicated.

He went to the next letter.

_Dear Last Resort,_

_We are absolutely incensed by the dreadful, common behaviour of our so called friends and relations!_

_My beloved wife and I made sure we had a beautiful wedding. We invited all our relations, all our friends, served a banquet with venison, truffles, Calishite Delight, and free Saerloonian wine, and booked a legendary bardic troupe. My wife and I needed to feel like royalty on our big day!_

_The day after the wedding, we catalogued all the presents we received. It was a mistake. Our UNGRATEFUL guests barely gave us any decent gifts! Our wedding cost us sixty-eight gold pieces a head, and the presents were not NEARLY enough to cover these costs!_

_Should we write to our guests and tactfully suggest that their REAL gifts must have been mislaid, or should we cut the chase and send them invoices?_

_Sincerely,  
_ _Wedding Worried._

Krilpur sighed happily. It was exactly like a situation described in one of Madame Endolynne Markett's novels. He was improving his human cultural knowledge every moment.

_Dear Wedding Worried,_

_Congratulations on your marriage! You must be so happy together. Two souls, twinned together in the eternal rainbow of song and rhyme, travelling as one being, throughout the heat of the day and the dark of the night and the glimmer of twilight and the rosy fingers of the dawn, as the immortal pen of Madame Endolynne Markett puts it, if you will pardon my quote._

_Marriage, after all, is the key purpose of humanity! As a human myself, I know this very well. How wonderful for you to have found a fruitful partnership with a kindred fellow human soul!_

_I am sorry that your guests have not observed human traditions and respected your love. It seems they don't understand that love is the greatest treasure of all. I suggest the next time you give a banquet, serve raw fish and marsh beer. These are much better tasting than venison, truffles, Calishite Delight, and Saerloonian wine and do not cost very many copper coins._

_Yours with every kindness and congratulation it is possible for a human to offer,  
_ _Last Resort._

Krilpur went to the next letter, and to his delight found it was just as romantic. _Maybe I could offer to answer all the letters about romance for Kovacs, and he can answer all the letters about murder! _he thought. He would need to first show that he did a good job.

_Last Resort,_

_It's not fair. Our families always say we shouldn't be together, but we really love each other._

_We don't know why we're bothering to write to you. We know we have to be together. We'll run away together. If you even answer this letter, don't even try to tell us that we're bad for each other or that we encourage each other to break society's ridiculous laws or that we shouldn't set barns on fire or whatever._

_Sincerely,  
_ _Aulava and Tiiro._

It was exactly like Madame Endolynne Markett's twenty-third novel, the one where the dairy-maid's family was at odds with the duke's family because their ancestors swore a blood oath of vengeance many years before. That had had a happy ending, too. Krilpur could feel the frills around his eyes mottling up with sentiment. If he'd been human, he would have shed a happy tear.

_Dear Aulava and Tiiro,_

_Your love is truly an inspiration to me and to the world. Do you happen to know a Madame Endolynne Markett by any chance?_

_Did you think I'd advise you not to run away together? Of course you should run away together. Let love be your only law!_

_Crossing my fingers for you both,  
_ _Last Resort._

As he addressed the letter, the thought of wondering about the burnt barn crossed Krilpur's mind, but he decided not to worry about that. He'd seen Kovacs the Bhaalspawn set plenty of things on fire in his time. It was a normal part of life.

The last letter in the pile was written in fading ink on a small piece of tattered parchment.

_Last Resort,_

_Don't imagine I'll get any answer back. Just a lonely old man with nuffing to his name. Saw your picter and thought, well, what if that bloke's like me? Worthless kid, worthless wife, no one to visit. It's the end for me and I know I'll face it alone._

Krilpur drew out his pen to confidently compare this situation to another Endolynne Markett ... and failed. His idol hadn't written anything that would be useful to him here. What could he do? What could he say? He stared into space, deep in thought for a while. Then he went to post his correspondence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do _you_ want a question answered by Krilpur the dopppelganger, fellow humans? Submit it through a review and he will get back to you!


	2. Chapter 2

Krilpur closed the old man's gate. He hadn't meant to, but he'd stayed for above three bells. The old human had a lot to talk about. Krilpur had heard all about the man's worthless estranged son until he could have shapeshifted into him from memory, conjuring each and every feature and mannerism with utter accuracy.

The old man lived in a small, barely tended shack with a leaking roof; he was barely able to leave his bed. He grumbled about the man who came to clean twice a tenday and barely did anything.

Krilpur had patched the roof and made an omelette out of the stray kitchen supplies. It hadn't been a very good omelette by human standards. The old man complained about it at great length, but had still eaten it.

Death gathered above this old man's head, and there was nothing Krilpur or anyone else could do about it. Except visit again. Krilpur thought he would do that.

He slipped into the alleyway where people directed letters to the Last Resort, and looked through them with his heart in his mouth in case one of his own correspondents had replied to him. He glowed with pride when he saw that one had, so he left the rest of the letters for Kovacs and tripped back to the lair with his precious secret in hand.

_Dear Last Resort,_

_Thank you for your precious letter. So many of our friends and relations have told us that we are being selfish, but you wrote kindly and without judgment to us. Your letter truly showed us that we have love, and that's something that's hard to measure in coin._

_By the way, we have been exploring an interesting new business opportunity! A cadre of local gnomes have invented wonderful beauty products and we have signed on as distributors. We have enclosed an illustrated catalogue. To get started, order at least the circled minimum amount from us. Then, you can either sell your supplies yourself or recruit others into this great business opportunity. Everyone down the chain from you will have their orders pass through your hands, just as your order goes to us. You will make thousands in platinum if you persist at it!_

_Sincerely,  
_ _(No Longer) Wedding Worried_

Just like Madame Endolynne Markett's enterprising dairy-maid in the novel entitled _The Duchy of Dhirrea Does Damnway_. Krilpur made a hasty decision to go with the flow of this new adventure.

_Dear No,_

_As I am a human who loves to eat raw fish, I mostly get paid in raw fish. However, we have some discretionary budget, and I am sure my master will be very pleased if I can double or even triple our coin! Here is an order for two score and ten mud masks (we humans love a good wet muddy spot, and I see myself as a connoisseur of what is good mud and what is not), ten eyebrow remover packages (many humans, I have noticed, are choosing to depilate this season), and fourteen waist cinchers (humans frequently wear these uncomfortable garments)._

_Kind regards (and greatly looking forward to the luxury mud mask),  
_ _Last Resort._

—

Krilpur was busy composing his day's report in his mind while he returned to the lair. _Sir, I apologise, but I was not successful. At least, sir, I have ruled out some impossibilities. I hope that has been of service._ Annoyingly, the temple burglary was unsuccessful, for the priests did not have the artefact in their safe. Kovacs' suspicion was a prior theft. Krilpur had been assigned to visit wealthy citizens as an antique-hunter, while Kovacs followed a lead among the least wealthy.

Krilpur had heard what happened from Kovacs' mind.

_The desperate halfling family wrote a note to the Last Resort as a ridiculous final hope. They lived in Trademeet's worst district, in a squat dwelling with ceilings so low Kovacs had to bend half over and shuffle on his knees. They showed him their daughter lying in a sleep she couldn't wake from. Many healers and priests and hedge-wizards had tried. She was a dark-haired halfling maybe in her thirties, wearing richer and more impractical clothing than any of her family. She was pale and worn and shrunken in bed, even the _ _holes in her ears closing over after her family sold her earrings for her care. Kovacs looked at her carefully and found a hidden tattoo of Mask, god of thieves, on the woman's shoulder. She'd been the black sheep thrown out of a poor-but-honest family; always involved with the wrong people and struck down by a mystery curse. And then it was only her family who would take her in._

Find this thief's associates, was Kovacs' thought, and they might well find the one who laid the curse and the one who stole Albescu's prize united in one.

They searched for a tool of a god. Not a dead god, like Bhaal, but rather a vanished one. An amulet of Waukeen, goddess of merchants, imprisoned in the netherworld and all but dust to her followers. An interesting prize to a man who owned the son of a dead god.

Krilpur entered in the midst of a fight. Shalilah, leader of the doppelgangers, was arguing intensely with a human cart-driver. The load of mud upon the decrepit cart seemed likely to fall and swamp the group at any moment. Shalilah's present shape was a small human female that did not appear intimidating to others; he harangued the cart-driver in deep tones that strove to seem more threatening.

Krilpur plucked the cart-driver's angry thoughts out of his mind and knew this was his cargo. "Excuse me!" he began cheerfully. "This is my delivery and I'll gladly sign the order ... " Even Krilpur's general enthusiasm had started to falter. Something about these circumstances was not propitious.

Then the mud cascaded down from the cart. First it was a deep ominous creak, then a trickle, and then the sides bulged out in a flood before anyone knew it. Krilpur was swept down in the tide with his face in the mud, and almost drowned in it until Shalilah pulled him out by the scalp. He somehow didn't think the mud was as good quality as he'd thought.

"Perhaps I might ask where our food budget for this month went?" Shalilah asked him sarcastically.

The other doppelgangers closed in on Krilpur. He cringed back, about to confess all his sins and then some. _What have I done?_ He might have forced the doppelganger tribe to starve for a month! Maybe Shalilah should just have let him drown in the mud instead of face the justifiable anger of his entire tribe. Maybe they could somehow make enough sales to survive ...

"What's going on?" It was Kovacs, dismounting his horse. His dark eyes raked the scene before him, resting on Krilpur.

"This fool was about to explain what became of our food allowance," Shalilah said. "Something tells me it is linked to this ridiculous mud that was delivered to him."

Danger flashed in Kovacs' eyes. "Let's see. You didn't burn those letters like I told you to, did you? You answered them. And one of them invited you to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime sales opportunity in mud masks. What else is here?"

Kovacs picked up a waist cincher, which promptly snapped at a slight twist. He made a face. He dipped his fingers in the eyebrow remover and showed that his skin blistered at a touch. "Low quality leather and beauty treatments that burn the skin off. Save it for when you want to assassinate a particularly vain person, I suppose.

"I'm going to guess the perpetrators were the wedding idiots - they're greedy enough. And I'm supposing the business model is the one where you pay them exorbitant prices, they expect you to pass the goods on to the next person in the chain, and on and on until you run out of suckers.

"My father pulled off one of those some years ago, you see. They call it the Amnian Chain. It was more trouble than it was worth," Kovacs said.

And Kovacs was not even a person who could read minds like a doppelganger. The shame of hearing his own misdeeds burnt Krilpur like acid, though he also felt awe of this human who saw so keenly and reasoned like quicksilver.

The human that Krilpur had chosen to follow at any cost.

"You're right. About everything," Krilpur admitted.

"You know as well as I do that we do not require much in human currency, but we need not to starve," Shalilah told Kovacs. Negotiated, rather. If the doppelgangers needed to ask Albescu Demirci, Kovacs' adopted father, for more coin, he would certainly ask the reason why. And that very reason posed a threat to his son - small matter that it had not been Kovacs' fault in the least. It was all Krilpur's. Somehow Krilpur doubted Albescu would see it that way.

Kovacs reached up and twisted off his earring. He handed the jewel to Shalilah. "Pawn this. Should last long enough. Return to your normal duties - except Krilpur. You're coming with me." His smile was half attractive, half an overbright signal of danger ahead. "I think you're motivated to help fix this mess."

—

That was why Kovacs and Krilpur danced on the footpath to the house of the newly married couple, the worried-about-their-wedding pair who had conned Krilpur out of the doppelgangers' food allowance for a month.

Kovacs lifted his arms to the skies and bawled a fluent string of nonsense words. Mud covered his hair, he wore a ragged fur cloak, and white chalk striped his face and limbs in a ghastly way.

The plan was theatrical, manipulative, bold, and exploited the existing tension between Trademeet townsfolk and the wild druids in the surrounding forest. It suited Kovacs.

"You have broken the all-powerful laws of nature by stealing sacred mud from the grove!" Krilpur shouted, following Kovacs' command. "Face your destiny!"

Human neighbours gawked at the two strange druids in the street. One - Krilpur - was tall and hairy and hefty, his muscles rippling as if he would turn into a bear at that very moment. The other - Kovacs - was shorter but even stranger if such a thing were possible, speaking no human tongue but ululating in a high piercing call of such nonsense that even Krilpur couldn't imitate him. No one could have. That piercing sound would bring the house owners out at any moment.

"Helm preserve us, what in all the Nine Hells is going on here!" The jowly, slack-jawed man ran out of his house. A second head poked from behind his shoulder.

"You'd better run! My husband here is a member of the Steel Garrison Auxiliary! Go out there and _make_ them leave, dear!" The woman gave him a shove. She seemed to be taller, brawnier, and stronger than her husband. Ever since the cross-dressing incident in Calimshan, Krilpur had tried to learn more about sexual dimorphism in non-doppelganger species. Human males were mostly taller than females, though Kovacs and some of the other human males he knew were quite short. Among drow, fire giants, and yuan-ti, women tended to be bigger.

"I speak for the trees!" Krilpur wailed. Kovacs backed him up with some more wild chanting and the rattle of two thick sticks against each other. "You stole sacred mud!"

"Are ye daft, ye - So gerroff my property, you - " The man raised a flabby arm in a half-hearted gesture.

"Yes! Force us off your property, foul city dweller!" Krilpur shouted. "Force us from the land that belongs to no single greedy person but to life itself! Report to all your neighbours that it was _you_ who invoked a war with the druids!"

Krilpur read the humans' minds and they truly feared savage druids ruining their reputations. He held up his muscular arms, growled, and prepared to turn into a bear.

The humans luckily stopped him. "For the gods' sake, what mud?"

"You sold mud masks. Little did you know of the sacred grove you obtained them from," Krilpur said. "An eternal curse rests on you and yours until the mud is returned!"

Colour fled from the man's horrified face. His wife gripped her doorframe tightly. "But it wasn't us!" she shrieked. "It was the Baron, it's all the Baron's fault! We bought the mud masks from _him_ \- so go give him your curse!"

She spoke true. Kovacs let out his surprise - _All thought the Baron of Trademeet a rich and isolated nobleman, Albescu Demirci and many others sought audience with him and got only his butler closing the door in their faces; seems he's only a common con artist_. Krilpur had his own epiphany about the Baron the moment that he looked into the woman's memories of her agreement with him. He was thrilled and excited that he had his own information to contribute. If only he was right - he could not afford to be wrong yet again -

Then Krilpur's next cue flashed to him. He stepped up close to the man and spoke so that only he and no neighbours could hear.

"To lift the curse you must empty the mud in the aspen grove and bury your filthy gold in it. If you do not purify yourself before the full moon, raccoons will eat the bones of your palms," Krilpur whispered.

Kovacs palmed an alchemical trick. A cloud of smoke erupted before them as if they were truly druids making a dramatic escape, and they left the couple to think about their actions. They could dig up the gold at their leisure - though Krilpur suspected, somehow, that he'd be the one to do the actual digging.

Soon they looked like two unremarkable human men once more. They dodged through the back of the Baron's thickly fenced estate. Bristling hedgerows had to be at least ten feet deep. Yet they heard no sounds of guards patrolling the estate, as one would expect from a nobleman who was as rich as the Baron claimed to be. Ivy grew over a stone gate, unused for some time, and Kovacs convinced the lock to slide open. They stepped in the shadows of the back garden and saw no one. Two covered carts were heavily laden in the back, sitting still and prepared for an early departure.

"It is _not_ for our action today, for they could not have readied this so soon," Kovacs muttered. He dared to investigate: the place was bereft of people. He made two swift raids on the carts and emerged with a piece of glittering fabric. A clothing item. "For the female of the species, Krilpur," Kovacs explained. "It's too small for an adult woman, but too broad for a child. Men's things in one cart, this woman's in the other. Rats who flee a ship that's already sinking ... "

_This could be easy_, Krilpur thought, startled with a sudden hope. But then Kovacs raised his head like a wolf who'd just scented a rival dog.

A thief or three sought to flee from the scene of their crimes ... and a son of the god of murder had detected the smell of death in the air.

—

**Bonus Letters**

_Dear Doppelganger,  
_

_I have friends who find you to be the apex of what it means to be human and that you are the most romanceable being out there in the entirety of the Realms._

_What is your secret?_

_Regards,  
_ _A fan._

**—**

_Dear Fan,_

_If you could see me, you'd see the frills on my cheek blushing a fluorescent amaranth! _

_No, wait, be strong ... Kovacs warned me about people who use romantic correspondence as a way to get large amounts of money ... _

_Just like most humans would be, I am very flattered by your friends' interest. I have many secrets but I do not think they are relevant to this question, he he! If your friends are a mixture of dukes and dairy-maids, then you have all the ingredients you need for a wonderful Endolynne Markett romance._

_I like to think of romance as, 'There's a lid for every pot', or as Madame Endolynne Markett puts it, there's the right engraved locket to lay upon every swiftly beating heart fresh and flittering with the sap of the spring. There is somebody for every human._

_Or, as another human friend of mine would say, 'There's a sword for every neck'!_

_In the name of love,  
_ _Last Resort aka Krilpur_

—

_Dear Last Resort,_

_My girlfriend and I have been improving the world by scaring people into not being assholes. And it's working too, only three people died, and they all definitely deserved it. Or at least we were - she's broken up with me, and all because I shot one of those enchanted music boxes playing that stupid "Teenage Suicide" song. I thought she'd find it funny - I sure did. How do I win her back?_

_Big Fun_

—

_Dear Big Fun,_

_It seems that you two have both true love and a mission in life! You should definitely keep trying to win your girlfriend back. Perhaps you could serenade her under her window with her favourite song, woo her with a bouquet of delicious tasty fish intestines, or place affectionate notes among her favourite weapons._

_Failing any of those, you could always use some magical method of mass destruction to blow up an entire building. That always gets attention._

_Take good care of yourself!  
_ _Last Resort._

_—_

_Dear Last Resort,_

_I am a humble mage clerk at a money merchant guild, a rather decent job with decent pay except for one thing. I suspect that my boss is secretly a lich in disguise. No, she doesn't summon skeletons or threaten to turn our insides into acid, but she does the most unnerving things._

_Whenever my coworkers and I are standing around at the guild water barrel, she FLOATS by and demands the most impossible tasks. Like ordering me to construct a Fraud and Litigation Impact Testing Golem in just three days when it takes months and layers of enclave approval to get one up and working. Clearly a side effect of having lived for hundreds of years and losing all sense of time!_

_Or that instance when we were to have a guild midwinter banquet and she volunteered to supply the hall décor. Boughs of holly and mistletoe? Hells, no. Instead we got sarcophagi, blood on the walls, and ghouls on the noose – was I supposed to kiss my crush, the collections mage, under that? Yech._

_And the performance reviews are creepy! We would sit down on a one-on-one, face-to-face meeting at her very weird and eerie cubicle (a coffin for a desk) and instead of her talking to me about my performance, I would hear her voice in my head demanding I serve her for all eternity._

_But the very worst was the time when I passed by her cubicle to get some parchments signed. Having no quill on my person, I borrowed hers and she screamed like the screeching of a thousand harpies saying how dare I try to steal her phylactery._

_Sorry it got a little too long._

_Oh, Last Resort, how do I deal with my Lich Boss? I do not ask that she be banished (for we all need to make a *living* anyway) But how do I make my working relationship with her a bit more pleasant, sane, and not likely to make me cast Gate at the guild pantry on a Monday morning?_

_Yours,  
_ _Scared Desk Slave_

—

_Dear Scared,_

_It sounds like your boss is a bit of an 'asshole'._

_Does Big Fun take commissions?_

_Best wishes,  
_ _Last Resort_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it appears Albescu once did multi-level marketing. In fairness, he soon gave it up.
> 
> Thank you all for your delightful questions to Krilpur!


	3. Chapter 3

Krilpur saw the man's splayed limbs spread out white on the floor, in a dark pool of blood. His neck was incorrectly angled and he was certainly dead not long ago.

"The butler did it," Kovacs said. A flippant grin for a joke that Krilpur didn't quite get spread across his face, then was gone in another flash. The man who had just staved the other's skull in raised his head with a curiously blank expression.

He was indeed the Baron's butler - or at least had pretended to be. He was clearly something else, and that something far more dangerous. The thoughts that swirled within him were too dark and shielded for Krilpur to decipher them.

"I placed some alchemical preparations in your carts," Kovacs said quickly. "You'd not want to see all that loot go up in smoke."

The man bared his teeth, opened his eyes, and chanted.

"I see. Who steals your purse steals trash," Kovacs said. Fire bloomed in his right hand - a magic of his own. Krilpur unsheathed his sword.

Then men came from every direction into the room. Hollow men, pale men, men who knew not fear nor pain nor will. They were a sum of twelve dead men walking, drawing swords, advancing pitilessly upon the invaders. The man who had only just died rose up among them and grabbed a white dagger from his clothing, shielding his killer.

"And now we know what happened to the Baron's guards," Kovacs said. He inclined his head to the caster almost as one professional to another. "Which god, by the way? It's always the crazy fanatics who leave coin on the table. To say nothing of the undead you've raised."

Magic of healing and the body was almost always in a deity's power, not a mortal's arcane study. The desperate murderer clutched a slender black knife as a focus for his spells, his bony hand coiled about the hilt.

Krilpur flew into battle. Kovacs' fire suddenly multiplied itself many times, grew into a whip of flame that seared the dead men's bodies. They continued their grim steady march. Krilpur's blade cut into dead flesh many times and barely slowed them.

Krilpur was no good at coming up with plans like Kovacs; no good at slithering into people's minds and hearts and turning them upside down and inside out with words like Kovacs; but he knew that he was good at fighting. Doppelgangers were usually stronger and faster than humans and Krilpur was tall and strong even for his kind.

They held their own against the corpses, but holding their own was all they could do for men where lethal wounds mattered not at all. Bloodless limbs wielded swords and spears with inhuman strength. Cuts that split their bodies to the bone only dripped a slow dark ichor. Searing fire left them as charred, still moving wights.

Then the priest called the words to another spell. Krilpur's vision blurred and vomit rose to his throat. A grasping, clawing pain tore him from the inside out. He fell to his knees. Against his will, his form shifted back to its true one - a tall, grey-skinned humanoid with blurred, indeterminate features.

But Kovacs was worse off. Unlike Krilpur, he was not all mortal. Kovacs was part god - a dead god who was enemies with almost all living deities. That gave him power, but made him far weaker against divine magic. A hoarse scream like a dying beast tore out of his throat. In him was only a shattering pain.

The undead pinned him and Krilpur down with cold hands. Krilpur bled in many places. An ordinary human would be dead by now, but he didn't keep his vital organs in the places humans expected them to be. He played possum.

"By the Lord of Three Crowns," the priest breathed, and Krilpur knew him for a Cyricist. God of tyranny and madness and death. The successor of Bhaal, the dead god who'd fathered Kovacs on an unwilling human woman. The priest uttered another prayer in a twisted human tongue.

A dark miasma settled on Krilpur, slowing him, freezing his limbs in place like black ice. He was too numb to even feel Kovacs next to him any more.

"I see a vile, inhuman, horrifying monster ... and then there's the shapeshifter," the priest said. His footsteps, soft like autumn leaves, swept across the floor to rest by Kovacs. "One of the Children. The pitiful remnants of the predecessor to the true god. However did I come to miss you?"

"Don't tell me you ... already met all the others here," Kovacs said. His words drew the Cyricist in on purpose. The priest thought himself powerful, his victims powerless, and time enough remained for a religious gloat and rant.

He was wrong.

"You killed my brothers and sisters - but I'm no ordinary one," Kovacs boasted. His eyes glowed gold, sign of his inhuman ancestry. "My hand has slain scores of my siblings."

"Yet I don't smell any great power from you, and I know the smell of power." The Cyricist snapped his fingers. "The fools in my company knew not what they had, and fell. They were petty thieves. Gold and gold alone meant something to them. They held this greatest prize of all in their hands ... and can you believe they threw it out in the chamberpot?"

He touched a copper brooch on his shoulder with a slippery covetous touch. Krilpur knew copper was the least valuable metal in most human currencies. That particular object did not look well crafted to him, a shapeless semicircle of beaten copper with some odd markings on it. That being said, Krilpur had seen strange humans pay large sums of coin for lumps of stone that looked like they'd been vomited out by a giant - perhaps he would never understand human visual arts.

It didn't matter now, and the artistic value was not the point.

"Waukeen ... " Kovacs breathed, and Krilpur knew that this was the amulet they'd searched for all along.

_Hope you washed it before putting it on_, Krilpur caught Kovacs' thought. _Not that I'd count on it. Cyricists are best known for wearing-underwear-on-your-head madness._ The silly joke lightened Krilpur's heart. He waited for his cue.

"Waukeen is in chains in the Abyss, and her power is ripe for the taking. My lord Cyric may yet become the Lord of _Four_ Crowns," the Cyricist said. He stroked the amulet again as if he could not bear to keep his hands away from it, this thing for which he'd sacrificed an odd dozen of his fellow humans.

"I understand you need to kill the Bhaalspawn," Krilpur said, enough of a hint of real fear in his voice to make this work. "You could keep me alive. I'd be helpful and useful."

The Cyricist's grim gaze changed direction. "Bhaalspawn are solitaires. Their way is to kill or be killed, for power can only be held by one. I know that more than ever now." His fingers compulsively stroked the brooch. "Your kind travels in packs."

"The rest of my tribe could help you too," Krilpur offered. "Please let me live."

"My dead friends would pack you all up to sell on the exotic slave market. The currency of Cyric is pure suffering. For which he pays me well in power." The fingers couldn't stop stroking that length of beaten copper. "The power to _know_ that you_ lie_!"

The edges of the Cyricist's eyes were streaked with dark purple strands, like garish supernatural eyeshadow. He pointed a forefinger at Krilpur and his body was instantly racked with more pain.

"I speak the truth. I have a possession of yours," Kovacs interrupted. His voice sounded strained but Krilpur hoped it was put on. His master felt as much pain as anyone did when he was hurt, but as a result of his divine heritage his body knit itself together again much faster than ordinary humans. Krilpur had managed to grasp the reasons why that was both an advantage and a curse.

"Possession?"

Like others before him, the priest was drawn to the trails and traps of Kovacs' tongue and gleaming eyes. "It is true," Kovacs breathed, and the priest leaned down in curiosity. "You gave me something of yours and did not know it. I'll give it back."

Kovacs wrenched one arm free from the dead man, the fingernails set in rigor mortis leaving bloody trails on his skin. He held a palmful of the depilatory Krilpur had bought and shoved it into the man's face. It burnt the Cyricist's face and eyes as he screamed.

Just like the married couple, he shrieked out: "It's _not_ mine. It was all the Baron's fault - "

Then Krilpur extended his arm, still carrying his sword, his wrist yet held by dead fingers, and drove the blade into the priest's skull.

His arm collapsed like a limp long piece of bread dough in the next moment, but the damage was done. The Cyricist rolled sideways and landed beside Kovacs. His prayers and enchantments shattered with his last gasp. The hands of the dead men pinning them down became so many slabs of decayed meat.

Then Kovacs' hands were on Krilpur, drawing cloth around his wounds to staunch the flow of blood. If Krilpur knew one thing from Endolynne Markett's work, it was that dukes were not supposed to do this to servants. "You shouldn't," he protested.

"It's this or I'll carry you out," Kovacs said. He still moved more slowly than he should have, but the cuts on his arms were already closing of themselves. His hands deftly twisted a compress over Krilpur's arm, tying it off with a complicated grief's knot.

"That man ... he was wrong," Krilpur said. With some effort he changed back to a human form, bleeding red rather than silver. "About you. Bhaalspawn are solitaires, he said, but you're _not_."

"Who knows?" Kovacs said. For an instant Krilpur felt the bleak and black side to his mind, a grim certainty of slavery and death. Krilpur could try to fling every speck of light and hope in himself into that starless void, and yet he knew that even the sacrifice of all he was would bring no speck of dawn to that darkness.

"You knew all along that I would never mean those things I said to the priest, not in a hundred thousand years. Particularly because you prompted me to say them," Krilpur said, cracking a half smile. "You are not alone. You have Tirzah, and you have me - and almost all of our tribe ... " His words were awkward, but he felt as if it was now or never to say it. "You have me," Krilpur repeated.

Krilpur felt Kovacs pull his mind back, carefully lock down any and all shows of emotion or thoughts from others. "The kill was yours. Well done," he said. He plucked Waukeen's brooch away from the dead man and secreted it deep in an inner pocket. He shrugged at the death around them. "Not a very salubrious scene. Law enforcement can be tedious - let's skim the cream from the loot, leave in haste, and have the town blame it all on the Cyricist."

Krilpur followed in Kovacs' wake; he could tell there was a definite destination in mind in the town. They smelt smoke in the air and saw a dark cloud on the horizon, as if the local farmers had selected today as their time to burn rubbish. Kovacs walked up to the door of the halfling family and rapped on it.

He rapped a second time, then a third.

"Take a hint and bugger off!" a man's voice answered.

"It's me, the Last Resort - helping with your daughter in the magical sleep, remember?"

"_Especially_ you go away, you - you - aider and abettor!" a woman yelled in complement.

"She didn't come to life again, did she?" Kovacs asked.

"Yes, on the last bell or just about, and she ran off with all our coin and the silver teapot for good measure! You're most likely a rapscallion and ruffian just like her!"

Indeed, at about the time of the Cyricist's death, the halfling woman had woken from her cursed slumber. No prizes for guessing who'd cursed her.

"I'm guessing payment is out of the question ... " Kovacs said.

"Yes, it most certainly is! Now leave or we'll call the law down on you! Our other daughter is a paladin!" the halfling's mother yelled. Kovacs turned to go with a rueful smile. He and Krilpur wandered back down the Trademeet alleyways, wending their way back to Kovacs' father.

That thought reminded Krilpur of his earlier epiphany. "I met the Baron's father," he said. "He's here in Trademeet. He was the old man who wrote to you. I read his mind. As soon as I saw the Baron's face in the wedding woman's memories I knew he was his bad son." Krilpur read Kovacs' upcoming question in his body language and sighed as he realised he could not answer it in a satisfactory way. "He and his son were estranged for many years. He knew nothing of the plot, so there is nothing for us to gain from him. He should be left alone." Kovacs agreed with a nod.

"But perhaps there is something to gain from that halfling woman," Krilpur suggested. "She was with the Baron, a thief just like the rest of them ... Ought we to pursue her?"

"I daresay she's rushed to those escape carts even now," Kovacs said. She'd been the owner of the jewelled clothing they had found. Krilpur supposed that sort of thing was uncomfortable to wear despite, or because of, being very expensive. "Perhaps she'll manage to evade the town guards, or perhaps not. She was cursed in the first place because her reach exceeded her grasp. Let her go. She is a fellow sealed of the tribe of Robert Macaire, and must claim a distant cousinship to us. We know what it means to live by your wits, take whatever you can charm or steal or trick out of another, dance with everything you are hanging on one single thin thread, juggle ten sharp knives in the air and never let them see anything but your smile. We must allow some professional courtesy ... "

As he spun his fancy, Krilpur noticed the smoke thickening in the air, as if the farmers' fires were not dying down. For some reason, a shouting crowd had gathered in the town square. A few men started pointing at them. He looked about, startled.

They were not pointing at him. It was Kovacs.

A chant rose from the angry mob. "The Last Resort! Burn him to death!"

**Bonus Letters**

_Dear Last Resort,_

_My husband left me a few months back. Ran off with some little cow. Last I heard they were living together in Candlekeep. Without a rare book those monks won't let me in to give him a piece of my mind. How do I get closure? And alimony?_

_Mrs Dreppin_

_Dear Mrs Dreppin,_

_I suggest you apply to the Candlekeep Organisation for the Welfare of Lost Or Vulnerable Animals, or COWLOVAs for short. Doing _that_ with a cow is very inappropriate, even for a human!_

_I say this as a human, of course. We humans are very strange creatures!_

_Be good to your animals,  
_ _Last Resort._

—

_Dear Doppelganger,_

_Thank you for your prompt reply and wonderful advice! I will endeavour to possess secrets of my own and become as mysterious as you!_

_I adore your column pieces. Where did you learn to write? What advice do you have for aspiring columnists? Do you have any favourite literary works?_

_Hopefully,  
_ _A fan._

_Dear Fan,_

_Thank you for asking such a wonderful question! My favourite works are certainly Madame Endolynne Markett's novels. They have such wonderful insight into how we humans live and practice the arts of human romance, particularly between dukes and dairy-maids._

_However, I have experienced a recent dilemma myself regarding Madame Endolynne Markett's works! I was matched to my boss in the Secret Ilmater Winter Gift Swap and gave him my favourite novel with annotations I made myself for all the best bits. But I do not think he read it at all, because later I glimpsed a book in the local free library that was exactly like my present and it still had my bookmarks in it!_

_At about the same time, my boss lent me a book on nihilistic philosophical digressions that I have not yet brought myself to finish, because the chapters are so long and there are no interesting human characters. Or any characters. I am confused._

_(I must admit, by 'lent' I mean 'I borrowed it from his room to try and impress him and now I'm worried he'll find out who stole it'.)_

_Do you have any thoughts, Fan?_

_Kind wishes,  
_ _Krilpur._

—

_Confidential to Big Fun:_

_"Scared Desk Slave thanks Last Resort for answering his letter. The clerk is now considering putting his midwinter bonus towards hiring Big Fun if his lich boss this time asks for an Operational Stress Testing Golem completed in just one week. ;P"_

_There you go: employment opportunity!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baldur's Gate spoiler alert: Dreppin turns out to be the president of the Candlekeep Organisation for the Welfare of Lost Or Vulnerable Animals (COWLOVAs).
> 
> With all the half-elves, half-orcs, half-dragons, half-dwarves, etc. floating around, I'm sure humans in the Realms have a reputation for promiscuity. Concerned elven parents tell their offspring, 'Dear, you've dated three different people in fifty years ... people are starting to wonder if we have human in our bloodline!'


	4. Chapter 4

_Step back and don't act like a friend_, Kovacs' mental command told Krilpur, so he obeyed orders as best he could. The angry mob surrounded Kovacs. Krilpur noticed the married couple taking a lead role in it all, a man and woman he didn't know walking a dog together, and two distinct groups of smoke-stained people, somehow presenting as separate from each other despite being apparently all affected by the same disaster.

"The Last Resort started a war between Trademeet and rogue druids!" the married woman shouted.

A halfling with a priest's chain around his neck raised his fist. "He brought Shiloh out of her magic sleep and she stole the neighbourhood blind!"

"He advised us to eat our puppy!" the man walking the dog called, with his hand wrapped around both his wife's hand and a leash. "We were so upset at the suggestion that we got back together to protect our sweetie!"

"He told our little Aulava to get together with that horrible boy Tiiro!" one of the leaders of the two smoke-stained groups spoke.

"He told our precious Tiiro to get together with that pyromaniac hussy Aulava!" her counterpart yelled.

"How dare you! Your family is the most criminal, two-faced, noodle-brained, syphilitic lot of crusty sock puppets ever since Mondrigo the Chaste appointed his six illegitimate sons to the Council of Five!"

"Excuse me? Your family is such a gutter-mouthed lot of street-sucking scum that I'd call you the bastards of toads, if only that wouldn't get me arrested for cruelty to animals! Your granddad drinks like a fish and you couldn't find your own bums if you started with your hands in your bunghole! Your mother smells like broccoli!"

"Which is why our families have feuded for the past five hundred years," said a bard with a jingling cap, bowing and shaking his hat for emphasis. "Alas! Alas! Alas!"

"And now Aulava and Tiiro, the formerly faithfully guarded flowers of their respective family flock, set five-and-twenty barns on fire as a means of declaring their love," announced his counterpart on the other side, holding a fearsome looking pair of bagpipes. Two particularly smoke-stained teenagers, a scrawny boy with knock knees and a squat, pimpled girl, looked guilty and refused to release each other's hands.

The town mayor spoke with a booming voice. "It is our judgment ... the Last Resort must burn too!"

Krilpur stood on the other side of the square. He had deliberately selected as high ground as possible. He stood wearing Kovacs' shape and shouted loudly to them.

"That man is not the Last Resort, let him go! It's me you want! I eat dogs for breakfast on a regular basis, I believe in true love, and some of my favourite people set things on fire all the time! Chase me - "

The mob dropped Kovacs and ran for the other Last Resort. Krilpur rushed posthaste, turned a sharp corner and shapeshifted into a skinny old nag, then raced in the opposite direction. Kovacs pulled himself up on the horse's back and they flew away together. Kovacs was a good rider, someone who liked animals and spent the time to learn how to do it right, and with a sapient steed you couldn't ask for better coordination.

The exhilarating ride came to an end all too soon. Krilpur remembered to look sheepish as he turned back into a human again in the rear of Albescu Demirci's rented lodgings. He rubbed at his aches and pains. "I'm sorry they attacked you because of me," he explained. He discovered all of a sudden that his feet and the ground around them were extremely interesting and he did not want to look at anything else.

Kovacs' hand brushed his shoulder and made him look up. "No matter. It's not the first time someone's wanted to burn me to death," he said. "What have you learnt today?"

"Uh ... " Krilpur racked his brains. "Something about the power of love?"

Kovacs rolled his eyes and grimaced. "I'll never understand your interest in romance novels. Maybe it's because your people don't pair-bond that you're so curious about it. Remind me never to get a girlfriend, for you'd undoubtedly drown her with endless questions."

Krilpur opened his mouth, about to ask another one of those endless questions, but was cut off.

"Try again. What have you learnt?"

"That I still have a lot to learn about human culture?"

"Almost. _Don't answer other people's mail_."

Krilpur, downcast again, felt his frills flush black with guilt. "That is completely and entirely understood now and for all eternity, sir."

"Well. Scammed by the wedding idiots, recognised the Baron, took down the Cyricist, got the dog-lovers back together, and encouraged Aulava and Tiiro into recreational amorous arson. I'd say that's a solid three out of five. Not bad. Maybe play to your strengths and try your hand at writing fiction instead?"

Krilpur looked out at the wind stirring the trees and the glorious pinks and reds and yellows of the sunset. Kovacs strode up the path into the house. A smile came to Krilpur's face.

Yes. He would try his hand at writing romantic human fiction, just like Madame Endolynne Markett, and would surely bring eternal joy to all who read his work. He could feel plots surging up inside him like the juices of delicious fermented rotten fish bubbling inside one of his stomachs. There would definitely be a duke and a dairy-maid. Maybe even multiple dukes and multiple dairy-maids. It would be glorious.

—

**Bonus Letters**

_Confidential to a Friend upon a recent Examination_:

_Dear Examination Victim,_

_I wish you every success in your endeavours! Here is a story of a different examination at a different time._

MUCH ADO ABOUT AMN, or THE ARCHMAGE'S TALE

I'll sing you a song of a past exam,  
Of an archmage in Amn, Demirci by name.

Amn muzzles her mages and locks up her spells,  
A license they need - else away to the cells.  
Demirci, ever punctual, at dawn by the door,  
Waited for his examiner, bureaucracy a bore,  
Tapping his feet and adjusting his robes.  
(He'd forgotten his hood, and the sun burnt his nose.)  
Midday shone down with no soul to be seen.  
Demirci's temper was far from serene.  
Later, the sky glowed. An omen of death?  
A sign of some drear dead last desp'rate breath?  
Crepuscular twilight, twixt dusk and eve,  
At long last the man, when Albescu would leave.

"Did I make you wait? Oh, well, don't blame me.  
"Quick, show your stuff, for I've places to be.  
"All Amnian mages must pass their test,  
"To show they are serious, not casting in jest.  
"Their spells must be seamless, their craft first class.  
"Alchemist's arts for placebos and sops,  
"Pyrotechnics plentiful, bang, screech, pop!  
"Your keen attention is therefore required:  
"This tricksome testing must be verified."

The mage looked down from his long sunburnt nose.  
Summoned magical bolts in eight neat rows.  
Conjured raw fire and transmuted the doors,  
Changed stone to silk cloth and wood to woodworms.  
Shook graves to their roots and called sleepers forth,  
Then blew them back with a wind from the north.  
A lightning bolt seared the licenser's robes.  
A subtle enchantment forced him to doze.  
Nine dozen kittens emerged from his robe.  
Nine dozen kittens ... who needed a garderobe!  
They mewed and they clawed and they did as they needed,  
Making perfumes and messes that could not be exceeded.  
Albescu bethought of another spell:  
The kittens vanished, though Amn kept their smell.

"Yes, yes, all in order," remarked the man.  
"My clipboard's all ticked. You've done what you can.  
"Your licence is pending, you have some skill,  
"But we have all too many forms to fill.  
"There's such a backlog on everything,  
"You'll get it on Thirteenth Thirdday in Spring!"

Delay unforgivable! Such an outrage!  
Red fury flamed on the cheeks of the archmage.

Then came the battle of rulebooks and quills!  
Endnotes, appendix, all thrills and spills,  
Rule versus judgment with meanings galore,  
Citations so thick no one could keep score.  
Two minds of the same close-screwed twist and bent,  
First Albescu, then the Amnian went,  
With arguments abstruse and most unpleasant.  
All night they shouted, then drew to a draw,  
Two-hundred-all was the state of the score.

"Tirzah!" called Albescu, and he gained aid.  
His ogre friend stepped in, the outcome swayed.  
She flicked the examiner upside down,  
Swung him around with the ground by his crown.  
He shortly had a rapid change of mind.  
The licence was swiftly sealed and signed.

The moral of my fine _chanson de geste_?  
In all wizard squabbles, the plain way is best.

—

_Dear Doppelganger,_

_I am overwhelmed by your response! You have given me so much to think on. Bridging the divide between social stratification sounds like a most worthy goal, providing of course the dairy-maid is not being taken advantage of by her duke! Have you encountered such a case in your time? I imagine the issue from such trysts creates all manner of wonderful self-exploration into the human condition and lays the ground for the child, who might be a secret to those of his father's household and peers, to return and claim his or her father's affections - or even his seat should tragedy befall him - upon coming of age! Have you ever seen such a thing?_

_As for your dilemma, I would suggest either placing the borrowed book in the local library, or slipping it under a pile of books your employer is currently reading. Alternatively, you could prepare a discourse and place it as your secret gift, if your employer is the type to appreciate the time and effort you took: perhaps you could rewrite it as a journey embarked upon by a character as he or she learns what it is to be human, facing all kinds of trials and tribulations, romantic and otherwise! My last suggestion is that you simply provide other works by the same or similar authors to the book you 'borrowed'. By no means come clean and admit you stole it! Reading your columns has taught me that you should always frame things in the best possible light and avoid words that conjure images of negativity!_

_Alternatively, have you considered a gift that might be more practical? A nice woollen scarf or sweater? Perhaps with a festive motif or a personal moment your employer might appreciate? You could give all your colleagues (and yourself) such an article, in other to avoid culpability: it is a secret gift exchange. But if all else fails, perhaps you could pillage a cellar and find a very old spirit, if your employer likes to celebrate that sort of thing._

_If that doesn't work, perhaps try giving your employer the gift you want to have and convince to swap gifts. As a bonus, why not decorate the office with festive cheer? Everyone loves a holiday! It's also a great time to give a gift to someone you're sweet on but be sure to include others so they don't feel left out. If your boss is in an established romance, perhaps his sweetheart might appreciate a little something. That will show your boss how considerate you are! Go above and beyond: if your boss has a boss, why not also send a small gift?_

_When writing this out, I thought about how you might advise me. I think it's normal not to know what to get your boss. Definitely part of being human! Do let me know how it works out,_

_Humbly yours,_

_A Fan_

_PS: have you considered writing your own book in the same field as Madame Endolynne Markett?_

This reply is in _vers libre_. I hope you're proud of yourself.

ONE MIDWINTER'S EVE, or 'TWAS THE SILLY SEASON INDEED

One solstice night, some stealthy schemes were laid,  
To sort out a spree, one Midwinter's night.  
The House of Demirci was most unwise ...  
To give the planning to Krilpur, who tried.

He ticked on each finger his spiffing schemes,  
Eons of eggnog, with spices of sin,  
Straw gibbering goats, to flare up with fire,  
A funny Red Man, good gifts to inspire,  
Cheerful chirping carols, called by a choir  
Of deadly doppelgangers drawn to dance.

And mistletoe! Much of that there must be.  
He most longed to see true love at the glee.  
A cartload, five more, no sense in stinting,  
Each wall, each ceiling, all green and glitt'ring.  
The funny Red Man facing full forecastle,  
The sack of secret gifts smuggled in his arms.  
He was tied to his rack, bound and bleeding,  
A perfect decoration by all Krilpur's reading.

The noble night fell. The grand guests came.  
Albescu Demirci, above it all.  
Lofty Livia, his lively, learned bride.  
Shalilah, devious doppelganger.  
Fair Pherenike, a feisty maiden.  
Tirzah, tough as two-and-twenty tarrasques.  
The marvellous and tender Madeline.  
And somewhere Kovacs, the unwanted son.

The singing somewhat screechy and shaky,  
Free flowing wine and comfits quite fishy,  
Dishes delicious to doppelgangers,  
Humans hesitating over their hungers.  
A shade bilious, seeing the statue:  
The traditional Funny Red Man, yes -  
But on the rack he didn't look his best.  
A cauldron gushed with creamy comfort:  
At least the eggnog was exemplary and earnest.

Start off the Secret Ilmater Gift Swap!  
Tirzah whipped off the wrapping without waste.  
Her tusks quietly drooped in disappointment,  
Though she was too tough a bruiser to show it.  
Socks! What manner of monster would give socks?  
None answered to it - but it was Albescu.  
Demirci too got his disappointment.  
A decent-sized donation in his name -  
To protect poor puppies from bad people  
(Like him).  
What would be a good gift for Shalilah?  
Shapeshifter of skill, legend and leader,  
Ancient speaker for a tribe once meagre.  
Old enough to watch empires born and dying,  
Nigh immortal, iron willed, always defying.  
One would expect an epic, eerie, boon ...  
Krilpur's knitted jersey fell to his knock.  
A tapestry of tangles and fuzzy bits,  
Not easy to elucidate, they all said.  
A puppy? A prince? Surely not fresh bread.  
'Twas icicles and a grape, shaking in dread -  
"Have a Berry Ice Midwinter," it read.

Livia's lot and letdown fell later.  
She stepped up and squared up and slit her sack.  
Could her present be passably pleasant?  
The doppelgangers' eyes grew dew-bedecked  
With eager envy, each and every one.  
What more delectable, what more divine ...  
Than a freshly caught flounder, flavoured with brine.  
Yet Livia looked not immensely impressed  
When scales slid and splashed on her sheer silver gown.  
She shrieked at the stain and threw the fish down.  
Her only satisfaction, spitefully sought,  
Was to watch what poor Pherenike wrought.

Pherenike, that fair but fatal femme,  
Peeling her poor plain pearl-tinted parcel,  
Felt a frisson of fear she feigned to forgo.  
Brittle beads of ice brushed her bonny hands.  
Twelve blue roses, frozen fresh by a charm.  
One she fastened to the bosom of her frock.  
She dismissed Livia's look of dismay.  
True, this tribute was tolerable - but  
Another aim she'd set her heart upon.

Krilpur made ready the mistletoe maze.  
The daring damsel had a devious plan.  
She'd sweep through to seek her stealthy sweetheart,  
Her aim to find Kovacs and claim his kiss.  
To the mistletoe maze! But her first stop ...  
Caught her Livia's cold peck on the cheek.  
Onwards and undaunted on her quest.  
Snapping and snarling warned her what lay next.  
A grubby girl: "No. Kiss Spider instead."  
The canine (not arachnid) kissed keenly.  
Loud barking, wet tongue licking lip and limb.

She advanced. Had she achieved her goal? No -  
Now kiss Shalilah, slightly sinister.  
He formally bowed, as if foretelling  
A future he would not live long to see.  
Losing will, Pherenike wandered on.  
Tirzah! She turned out to be a terrific kisser.  
Distracted, Pherenike dashed away.  
To Madeline, more moderate, though not  
What she most wanted. Would she ever win?

Then at the last mistletoe she sighed, stoic.  
It was Krilpur whom she won in the end.  
The delighted doppelganger dipped low.  
All that was romantic, he revelled in,  
And so he would enjoy until the end.  
"I'd be honoured, Lady Pherenike - "  
His sweet spirit showed to clear sight.  
"Could you change into him first?" asked she.  
Krilpur obliged, the form exactly Kovacs'.  
Pherenike kissed, and was satisfied.  
Strange! Krilpur thought, as his heart beat steady.  
The earth did not move. He wondered at this.  
She was not the one he wanted to kiss.  
Still, all in all, the night was a success -  
The cheerful doppelganger's ending was bliss.

And where was Kovacs? The reader requests.  
'Twas Krilpur composed his Midwinter gift.  
"Spirit of Midwinter? Methinks marvellous.  
"The perfect present for my best-choice boss."  
This spirit so happened to be ensnared:  
Living within a little blue teapot.  
It turned out to be a malevolent sprite.  
The Bhaalspawn must fight it with magic and might ...  
But that story is for another night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krilpur is an unreliable narrator, especially in poetry.
> 
> P.S. The kitties were all OK and went to good homes.


	5. Chapter 5

The old man kicked at the doorstop, knocking it over. He needed to cling on to the wall for support. "Where's my damn money?" His foot swung in an aimless arc. His skinny fingers scraped hopelessly on the wall. He hacked up what looked like half a lung and almost fell over. Krilpur felt the suspicion in him, unfairly directed -

"Tell me about your money," Krilpur asked. He listened as much to the thoughts as to the words that followed.

It happened every tenday. It started about two years ago, when the old man had truly begun to fail in health. He'd get up and find a small stack of coin under his doorstop, enough to keep body and soul together and pay the man to come and clean. Today the coin was missing.

Startled, Krilpur thought that it was also two years ago that the Baron had come to Trademeet. Suddenly the picture came to him of a thief scuttling through the Trademeet streets in the dead of night, leaving a pension by an old man's door. A thief who could not risk his face being seen by any who might recognise him from a former life, yet a thief who had led his gang to the town where his deserted father lived. A man who stole from the Tradesmeet townsfolk in broad daylight, a man who'd become estranged from his family years ago after decades of lying and cheating and getting into debt. A man who left his father alone and despised him, and yet bothered to leave coin under the doorstop every tenday from his ill-gotten gains.

A man who was now dead, and who his father never would see again in all the rest of his lonely life.

Krilpur reached into his pocket and found coins of the right denomination by touch. He'd been given a bonus from Kovacs for killing the Cyricist. Kovacs had argued with his father about it on Krilpur's behalf, and returned with a pocketful of coin. _Don't spend it all in one place_, he'd said wryly, for the sum was not much for a human, but to a doppelganger it was more than enough for Krilpur's needs.

Krilpur held up a rough fold of cloth. "I saw this on the ground not far from your door. I did not know it was anyone's. Perhaps ... "

The old man snatched it from him and counted. The amount was exactly right. He scowled. "I'll not have any monkey tricks from you," he said.

"I'm not playing any," said Krilpur. The old man leant on him and they returned to the house. "I will stay as long as I am needed."

—

Albescu Demirci, Sembian merchant, ex-priest of a now dead deity, had long since given up on his religious faith. Sacred divine objects and historical arcane artefacts were taken and sold by him regardless of any value or reverence. He was supposed by all who met him to have a steel counting-frame for a heart and a bear-trap for a brain. Waukeen's amulet on his desk had been among his principal reasons for coming to this place. Now his son had turned it over to him, it would fetch a pretty amount of coin in any of the specialised markets that he frequented.

He pressed the plain copper brooch to his bare upper arm. It dug into the skin. He began to chant a spell. First a bright orange shone on the edges of the metal, then the glow spread to cover all the metal. The copper became molten. The skin blackened and burned below the dripping copper, and yet his chant didn't falter. It was as if the liquid copper became part of his body, merged with burnt flesh and bone as one. Grafted skin grew to replace what was lost and you would not have known what had passed.

The small copper brooch had disappeared without a trace. Its power rested in a man who desired to supplant his own previous god. The same man owned Kovacs, in body and blood and bone.

—

Krilpur let go of the icy cold hand in his own. The fingers were still soft and flexible, the body cooling, bowels relaxed, and all the thoughts and feelings passed into nothingness after one final bright reeling flash.

As human deaths went, a natural one of old age with a friend by your side and a good supply of poppy juice was probably as much as anyone could hope for.

Krilpur had cared for the old man until the end, bringing food, mending his house, leaving the Baron's tithe in its usual place at the usual time. He'd spent all his reward in this place but didn't think Kovacs would have objected.

He swept the floor one last time, tested that the oiled door hinges slid readily back and forth for the next occupant, and left the crockery in a neat pile for whoever wanted to take it. Krilpur wrapped the corpse in old sacking and took it on his shoulders. There were many satisfying rewards in life, and a good dinner was definitely one of them. Although Kovacs had enjoined them to always avoid eating children, pet owners, and librarians, doppelgangers were made to feast on human flesh.

He and his tribe would eat well tonight.

—

**Bonus Letters**

_To some Dear Friends, from Last Resort (Krilpur)._

_My dear Fellow Human Friends,_

_Laying down my pen for the final time as the Last Resort, I think about what I have learnt about humans (like me). Thank you all for sending your letters. I think that you are wonderful humans._

_Humans are very complicated. Sometimes they just want other people to give them a lot of money to pay for their own weddings. Sometimes they form bonds hidden under the surface, like a stream that you think is only filled with mud until you suddenly turn up a golden pebble._

_Some parts of my experience were good!_

_Some parts (like being pursued by an angry mob) were a bit of a downer._

_When I next pick up my pen, it will be in the realms of fiction. I can already feel the character of my duke, _Vaakos_, coming to life! Not to mention _Kilprussa_, the humble dairymaid. Although my boss does not often read romantic fiction, perhaps he will have time for this one day._

_Onwards! Excelsior!_

_Krilpur._

—

_fin_


End file.
